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Unfortunately my computer has been having some trouble with the wordpress site so I have shifted my blog to Google. http://the-equilibrium-project.blogspot.com/ All the posts have been moved across so feel free to delete this one from your browsers and start using the new one.

Tonight I set myself the challenge of cooking two meals at once. A great Jamaican Beef Pepper Pot (recipe and pictures coming soon…) and this lovely Mexican Soup. The coriander in this recipe made this meal just delicious and even my roommate who is not a fan of coriander loved it. I got this recipe from The Paleo Recipes Cookbook. [You will have to excuse the messiness of the photos – I’m not a very clean cook :-p]

4. Remove from heat and puree mixture until it is of a creamy texture. Place soup back in the pan.

5. Add chicken to soup and cook for around 2 minutes or until Chicken is cooked through.

6. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with sliced avocado.

Feedback:

This recipe was a lot easier to make than what I thought it would be. The texture of the soup was beautiful and the taste was exciting. Extremely filling and great for either dinner or lunch. Will definitely be making this one again.

My day job is as a sales person. One of the things I learnt when I first began training is that anybody can sell to the person who has already committed to the sale. A real salesperson makes their mark by selling to the person who is not yet quite convinced.

The ability to sell to the uncommitted person is called objection handling. We as sales people go through the list of different reasons why someone would object to purchasing our product/service and plan positive solutions. I use the same rationale in everyday life and in making sure my plans work.

So when approaching my healthy eating I always try to think about everything that could happen to get in the way and prepare accordingly. So here are a few of the things that I think about to make sure that my plans stay on track:

Running out of time:

We all have busy lives. And sometimes, things just don’t go to plan. But do not give me the “I don’t have time” excuse. I’m going to bust this one straight up the middle because its CRAP. Absolute complete and utter CRAP. If you have time to watch television, you have time to cook. Yes I understand that you may have work, kids, university, sport etc but seriously if you don’t have time to make food you’re kidding yourself.

Most of the meals on my page take less than 20 minutes to cook. Tonight I cooked a weeks worth of meals in under an hour. (2 meals – 8 servings of food)

I’m not saying it’s always easy – but it is definitely possible. A little planning is all it takes…

Solution: PLAN PLAN PLAN – Everytime I see a recipe that I want to cook I put it into a recipe folder. Every Sunday I set aside a time to cook one or two meals from that list that can be frozen and reheated when ready. Eat some immediately and freeze some. Within a month you have four or five different meals in the freezer to used whenever you need. Then even when everything absolutely goes to shit – you have something ready to go.

It’s raining, too cold, too hot to train:

This one can potentially be a legitimate excuse. For example, I refuse to leave for a bike ride in the rain – it’s just too dangerous to ride on the roads when cars barely look out for you in normal weather conditions. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a plan.I always look at my training plan and have back up options ready. If it’s raining, I’ll schedule in a crossfit session or maybe some yoga. If it’s too hot to run, I’ll jump in the pool and go for a swim (or again head to the air-conditioned gym).In the middle of summer, I know it will be too hot if I don’t train early. So I get up at 5, get my training out of the way and get to enjoy the rest of my day.Your other option is to HARDEN THE FUCK UP!!! Stop whinging and just get your shit done. It sounds harsh but a little rain or sun isn’t going to kill you. At the end of the day, you have to choose how important your health is to you…

What can I do when I’m going out with friends and they’re all drinking/eating/partying?

This one can be as tough or as easy as you make it. You can either choose to stick to your plan absolutely or let it go. For me it depends how often this is occurring. If its more than once a week than I think you need to be careful. But the basics I try to follow:

1. I can drink whenever I want (although I find that usually this means a glass of wine every two weeks).

2. Follow as closely as possible the eating plan by ordering dressings on the side, no chips. However be realistic – a little balsamic vinegar will not kill me.

So those are just some of the things I do to make sure my healthy living plan succeeds. Now it’s your turn. Sit down and work out what it is that stops you from reaching your goals. Now… what are you going to do about it?

This lovely little recipe comes courtesy of the Paleo Recipe Book (with just a few little changes).

I really love cooking food daily and use the cutting and prepping veggies to wind down from long days at work and tough workout sessions. However, there are days when work runs late, you’re just absolutely shattered from your workout or maybe you just couldn’t be assed. Either way, this is when I find so many people come unstuck. I hear client after client tell me that it’s just too hard to maintain healthy eating patterns with their busy lifestyle. Well I’m here to tell you IT’S NOT THAT HARD. In order to make my eating plans work I always set myself up a database of recipes that I can whip up at a minutes notice or can freeze to eat later. My tomato and mustard chicken is one of these recipes.

Ingredients

1 Chicken

2 onions

1 can tomatoes

Dried thyme

3 Bay leaves

Chilli powder

1/3 cup white wine

1/4 cup homemade mustard

Garlic

Avocado oil (you could probably use another oil that is more stable at high temperatures)

3. Add the mustard and combine well. Simmer for another 10 minutes until mixture has thickened.

Feedback

I added some of my roasted veggie salad from last nights dinner and turned this into lunch. This recipe made four servings, so I kept one for tomorrow and put the other two in the freezer. Now the next time I need a quick meal I can grab it from the freezer, add some salad and go.

Usually, I like recipes that take a few minutes to cook. but every now and then I like to cook something that takes a little longer to prepare because the taste is amazing. This is one of those recipes. Still so easy, a child could make it, but make sure you have about an hour (including prep) before you plan on eating.

Ingredients

Fish:

Basa Fillet

Chilli

Lemon (squeeze juice)

Avocado Oil

Spinach

Salad:

Sweet Potato

Red Rascal Potato

Red Onion

Red Capsicum

Pine Nuts

More Spinach

Garlic

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180deg celsius. Dice the sweet potato, potato, capsicum, onion. Add the potato and sweet potato to a roasting tray along with a few cloves of garlic. (I pop some baking paper on the tray to stop it sticking). Coat in avocado oil and cook for 20 minutes.

2. At the 20 minute mark, remove from oven. Add capsicum, red onion and pine nuts to tray coated in oil and put back in oven for another 20 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, grab some aluminium foil and line with spinach. Place fish on top (any white fish will work) Coat fish in a mixture of chilli, lemon juice and avocado oil. Close up foil, sit on a baking tray and place in oven for 15 minutes.

4. Veggies and fish should finish around the same time so remove from oven and serve. Veggies can be placed on a bed of spinach.

I’m a big fat planner and proud to admit it. Although my friends may disagree with you when I turn up late to parties usually with wet hair or no makeup. However, when it comes to putting together my training and meals I sit down every Sunday and put together my plan for how I will tackle the next week. I find this keeps me organised and makes it much easier to get things done.

So, in an effort to maintain full disclosure I have decided to publish my Fuel and Fitness plans for the following week. Usually these are scribbled in my notepad but I have typed it up. The formatting leaves quite a bit to be desired so hopefully I can come up with something a whole lot nicer for next week. But anyway, here it is. Fuel & Fitness Plan: 9 Jan – 15 Jan

The meals are all very flexible with specific ingredients depending on what is on sale and what I can grab at the local farmers markets on the weekend. Feel free to hit me with feedback or comments as this is a work in progress.